Let's Play Imperfect

Are you an athlete that is ALWAYS trying to avoid mistakes in practices or games/matches? If you are, that means you want to play perfectly, and guess what? That's not possible!

In this episode, Coach Jojo calls out the athletes that are trying to play perfectly and why that issue is causing you problems. The main issue being that you probably have a control issue, but she is able to name give you three other reasons why you shouldn't try to play without making mistakes. 

1. It's not possible to play perfectly

2. Could make you play nervous, in fear, and with pressure

3. Makes you not play like yourself

Luckily, Jojo also tells the struggling athletes how to fix it with three tools (and some random advice throughout the whole episode). 

1. Expect mistakes before the game

2. Be "Playable"

3. Don't predetermine what you're going to do

You want to play perfectly (avoiding mistakes to not get taken out of the game, the fear of being judged by a play you'll make, not wanting to disappoint yourself or someone else in your life) because you're trying to avoid negative emotions.

P.S.

If you find the name of this episode to be scary and like it's freaking you out to ever play "imperfectly", then you really need to listen to this episode. 

Visit her website to get a free PDF on how to stop playing careful! Just on the home page and scroll down.

Let's Play Imperfect!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Are you someone who wants to play perfectly? Okay, maybe not perfectly, but you are someone who doesn't ever want to mess up. And I really don't blame you because who wants to be messing up? Who wants to make mistakes? But if you expect yourself to never mess up, then that means that you do want to play perfect. And that's just not possible. In this episode, I will be talking about why you want to be playing perfect and why that's a problem. And then I'll be giving you tools to help yourself out with managing that control issue you have. So let's get right into it. Welcome to Let's Play, the mindset coach for athletes podcast, where I help athletes build confidence, consistency, and eliminate overthinking thoughts so they can play free and accomplish all that they want. Hit that follow button. And if you want to sign up for one-on-one coaching or team coaching, visit my website with the link in the description. Now let's get into today's Let's Play episode. So I really debated whether or not to call this episode Let's Play Imperfect because if I were somebody, not if I were somebody, when I was an athlete and wanted complete control in my sport and wanted to play perfectly, I don't, I didn't know if I would click on an episode that would say let's play imperfect because I feel like it would have freaked me out. I would have been like, well, why would somebody be advising to play imperfectly? But that's exactly why I named it this episode, because I think that it's going to trigger some curiosity. And I think that's the reason why you guys are here. Unless you're you've seen um a couple of my videos on TikTok or Instagram and you've seen that I've been talking a little bit about playing imperfectly or the reasons why playing perfect is why we're not playing like ourselves and why it's adding so much pressure. But if you are somebody that clicked on this episode because you were curious, because you're like, why would a mindset coach advise to play imperfect when that's all I'm trying to do? I'm trying to play perfectly. I'm trying to play as well as I can in my sport, then this episode is something that you really need to listen to. Because if you're someone who freaks out at allowing yourself to play imperfectly, then you might have a control issue. And that's where we're gonna dive into and where the core problem of why you want to be playing perfectly is because you ultimately have a control issue. And don't get me wrong, that was me. I had, I still have control issues. I still feel like I need to control everything in my life in order for it to go exactly to plan. But as I've mentioned before in other podcasts, nothing goes to plan. Like if you were to set up a to-do list, you're obviously going to do the things on the list, but you also didn't know that if you're going to the grocery store, you didn't know that somebody was gonna start yelling at you in the parking lot, you know, or that's a negative thing that could happen. Obviously, there could be positive things. Like you don't know that maybe somebody was like, oh, they dropped$5 on the ground at the grocery store and you ended up getting$5. Like it's there's just so many circumstances in our life and we don't know that's gonna happen. And we try to prepare ourselves for every single circumstance, and that's just not possible. And we have to learn to adapt in the moment. So when we're tying that to our sport, when we're talking about control and we're talking about all of the outcomes that we're trying to predict, that we're trying to we're trying to put ourselves in shoes that could be ready for anything. And I think that's a really good thing to have. I think it's good to be prepared, but also at the same time, there has to be a balance. There has to be a fine line where you know that you could be set up for anything, but you also have to adapt. So in our sport, when you try to control an outcome, you're overthinking everything of that situation of what the outcome you want. And it's not making you play like yourself. You're not playing the way that you want to, you're not attacking the way that you want to. I'm a very, very big visualizer. I'm a very big manifester. If you guys have listened to my podcast, you guys know that about me. But I do believe that if you manifest something over time and you feel the emotions when you're visualizing, I do believe that it will come true in your life. The thing is, is that when you are visualizing a goal and when you are manifesting, you don't know how that's going to come. You are just trying to see the result, you're trying to see the outcome, but you really don't know the path that's going to get you there. And I don't mean that means that you're going to not work hard in your sport. Like let's say that my goal was to become a 40% three-point shooter. Obviously, I know the path that I'm gonna have to take is going to get into the gym and shoot a bunch of threes and get, you know, get a bunch of shots up. But also, I was the type of player where if I got too many shots up, I got in my head a lot because, you know, you start to get fatigued and you start to shoot bad, and then that gets in your head. Again, I'm using a basketball example, but you guys know what I'm talking about. Anything in your sport, maybe you are somebody like me where if you get too many reps in, it starts to get too much in your mind, you start to overthink. And our mind controls so much of our play that we don't even realize, like our sport is 95% mental and 5% physical. I say that all the time. So maybe, yes, I am visualizing to become a 40% three-point shooter and I'm getting all of this work in, but maybe my path is actually not working, you know, super hard in the gym. Maybe it's visualizing me making a three-pointer. And basically, what I'm trying to say is that you do not know the outcome, even though you have been trying to get there and you've been trying to set this goal. You have to adapt to the circumstances that are happening on your path, on the way to your goals, on the way to what you want to accomplish in the player that you want to be. And that means you are going to have to give up some control. If I were going to visualize that I'm gonna get in the gym every day, maybe one day I do not feel good. I, my body is so fatigued, I'm gonna have to adapt. I'm going to have to say, okay, maybe the way that I'm going to get to my goal today is actually resting my muscles and actually recovering. And that's gonna make me 10 times better the day after. And for someone like me, maybe for somebody like you, if you're listening to this, that freaks us out. That freaks our type A type of personality out. That is not something that we want to give up, which is control. And I also think people who want control are people who are busybodies and we need to feel like we're doing something 24-7 in order to get better at something. And especially if you're in the mindset where you want to play perfectly. And I know that we're not somebody that's saying, Well, I want to play perfectly, because we all know that it is impossible to play perfectly, but that's the irony of it, is that you do have these thoughts of where you never want to make mistakes. And if you were already thinking, I don't want to mess up on this and I don't want to make a mistake on this because coach is gonna pull me out. That is you trying to play perfectly. But I think to my whole subject of being a control freak and needing to play perfectly and needing to just control every single aspect in our life, we have to know that things are not gonna go the way that we want them to go or happen to go, or you could get a way better outcome than you ever thought that was possible. So you have to allow that to come. And allowing that to come is by you giving up control, which is so weird to us. I know that, like, if I heard that when I was in my career, I'd be like, wait, I have to give up control in order to make my life better. Like, that doesn't make any sense. I have to plan everything, don't I? Unless you're somebody that's a type B person listening to this. Oh my gosh, I wish I could be like you. And I'm working on it, I'm working on it. But for those that are type A, you have to be listening to me because trust me, it is going to free your mind up so much. So, why do you want to play perfectly? Why do you not want to make mistakes? It is because, I mean, you guys are like, well, because they fucking suck. I don't want to make mistakes. And yes, it is because you don't want to feel any bad emotion. If you make a mistake, then you're going to feel embarrassed, or you're going to feel frustrated, or you're going to feel like you're incapable, or anything, you're going to feel a negative emotion in some type of way. And maybe you're somebody working on that. Maybe you're somebody, you know, that's listened to my podcasts and my videos, and you're like, yeah, okay, no, I've been implementing body language right away. And I've been saying certain words that you've told me to say, Coach Jojo. And honestly, those could help you so much about not feeling super bad. But sometimes, most of the time, we are going to feel negative emotions. And sometimes the trick is actually to not ignore that, but to actually learn to play with the negative emotions because especially in a sport, especially when you're playing at high level, high competition, it is going to be hard to not feel negative emotions. That's the price that we have to pay. So when you make a mistake, you or no, no, no, back up. You don't want to make a mistake. So you're actually trying to prevent making a mistake in the game. Like let's say that you're in a game and you so badly do not want to mess up because that means that if you mess up one more time, coach is going to take you out. You are playing in fear, you are overthinking, you don't want to make that mistake because you're going to get embarrassed and you're going to be disappointed, or other people are going to be disappointed in you. You think other people are going to be disappointed in you. And you just don't want to be judged. You don't want to let anybody down. And you're having all of these freaking terrible thoughts that are going through your head. And I get it, I was there. I did that all the time. But here's something I'm going to say to you guys: you cannot control other people's opinions. You cannot control their emotions and you cannot control their reactions. The only thing that you could control is your reactions, your emotions, and your feelings, and everything that you think. And that's why it's so frustrating. And that's why we put so much pressure on ourselves because we know that. We know that we have to control ourselves and everything that we do. But sometimes we actually lose sight of that because we think, well, if I just try harder, if I don't mess up, then other people are going to think I'm a good player and I'm a good athlete and that I'm good enough for everybody else. And I get that it's debated that I've said this before, but I get that people say they're playing their sport for themselves. 100%. Of course we're playing our sport for ourselves. We think that it's fun in some sort of way. That's why we signed up for it when we were little kids and we kept going with it. But also, what comes with a sport is a crowd, is coaches, is teammates, is people, is people, are people telling you that you are a certain type of player, that you are good enough only if you're playing, only if you're starting. And so these thoughts over time, ever since we were little, start creeping into our head. And so we don't just play for ourselves, we are playing for the audience and the crowd. And that's why we also want to play perfectly. We do not want to get judged. We want to get judged in the right type of way, the way that we want people to think of us. And that's just not possible. You could try as hard as you want to, you could try to not mess up as much as you want. You could you try to play as freely as you want. They will have their opinions. And also, their opinion is not the truth. That does not make it true. And also, even if they're praising you, you don't know if that's true or not, right? It feels good, but you don't know if that's the truth or not. An opinion is not a fact, and we need to know that. So, why is playing perfectly an issue besides everything that I've already been saying? But to really dive into the issues, I wrote down three main issues. And the first one that I have is that it's just not possible. It is not possible to play perfectly, it is not possible to live a perfect life. That is being human, we make mistakes, and thank fucking god we make mistakes. Because if we didn't make mistakes, then we would not be growing to the humans that we're going to be. But by you believing that there is a possibility that you can't mess up, and honestly, I always cut myself off, but honestly, I get that if you're the type of player, because I used to be a player when at my first school, like if I went in the game, I didn't want to mess up and I didn't mess up, right? I wouldn't make mistakes, but I wasn't playing like myself. I wasn't doing more in the game. I just was, I was just out there and I wasn't really playing the game. I was just making sure that I did my role and my job so much so that it wasn't even contributing to the team. But if you're thinking in that way, you're expecting something that is not possible, which is going to leave you stuck, which is going to leave you to overthink, to play in fear, to not play like yourself. And so we, I just want you to know that you cannot avoid mistakes no matter how hard you try. So please stop avoiding them. Know that there's going to be times where, yes, you're going to make a turnover, you're going to whatever it is in your sport, and you're going to have to deal with it. You're going to have to be a fucking human being and deal with your emotion instead of blocking it away. And I know that's super hard for all of us. I think it's also really hard in this generation right now because we have our phone, we have TV, we have iPads, we have um video games. Try to think of a time because I know that either you're maybe you're a coach listening to this too, but and or maybe a parent, but most likely I think that a lot of my listeners are people in high school and athletes in college. And I want you to think of a time where you just sat for 10 minutes in the middle of the day for no reason, just to clear your mind. I guarantee that you have not done that. And I've actually been trying to do that lately because I'm trying to get more mental focus and I'm trying to actually deal with my emotions. And the reason why we go into our phones and why, you know, we are distracting ourselves with whatever we're trying to, even music, even music in the background is distracting our mind. And we do that to avoid emotions, to avoid boredness. Being bored is so good for us because it allows us to think, to get to know ourselves. I'm saying all this because if you are actually to sit down with yourself, deal with your emotions, you're gonna probably feel if you've never done this before, just literally sit in silence for 10 minutes, even five minutes, you're going to feel uncomfortable because you're probably going to start crying. You're probably going to break down because you've just been avoiding all of these negative emotions. And a lot of it is going to be because of your sport and you try so hard to not think about the mistakes that you're making. And then you're like, okay, well, it's fine. I'm just going to go on my phone and I'm not going to think about the mistakes that I made. And then you go to bed that night and you literally can't sleep because you have all of these thoughts that are not being filtered and not being analyzed by yourself. So yes, the first time's probably gonna suck. But then if you really just feel your emotion, it is not going to be that bad. It is not gonna be that scary. It's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to maybe be painful sometimes, but our bodies, our mind could deal with it. We could do it. We're still alive. We could wake up the next day and be like, oh my God, thank God I got all of those emotions out. I'm good now. Like, I'm totally reset. And that's what happens. You get stuff off your mind. You guys know when you rant to a friend or you rant to a family member and you feel better, it's because you realize that it's not that big of a deal. When you break it down, when you actually could feel the emotion, you're like, wait, this seems so scary, but why? Because it yeah, it was uncomfortable, but like I'm still here, I'm alive, I'm thriving still. Anyways, I kind of got a little bit off topic. That's almost like a tool that I could give you guys just to sit in silence for 10 minutes. But I know a lot of you are not gonna want to do that because it's just it's gonna be uncomfortable. But you guys have to do uncomfortable things. That's the thing about being an athlete. We do such hard fucking things, you're gonna have to pay a price. That's just what it's gonna be. And because of that, we get such a good result. Like we accomplish so much in our sport and it is so rewarding. So, to sum up again, the first issue I said was that it's not possible to play perfectly and you're expecting something that is not possible, and that's going to make you play nervous, gonna make you play in fear, it's gonna make you, it's gonna add so much pressure. And that's actually the second issue I have is that you're playing, you're starting to play careful and you're starting to tighten up, and you're just again, like you're just not playing like yourself, and it's the worst feeling ever. I actually have a free PDF that is called Stop Playing Careful, and it's on my website. If you guys just scroll down on the home page, you could put your email in, put your first name in, and it will be sent to you right away. Um, don't forget to check your spam folder because I know that it will go there sometimes. But yeah, it's totally free. You guys could check it out. I have a couple tips on there. I say why you're playing careful, and I think it would really help you guys, especially if you are somebody that's trying to play perfectly. You are playing careful, probably because you're scared to mess up. Honestly, these issues that I I tried to bullet point them for you guys, but you guys know I'm yapping. I literally have the third one is that it makes you not play like yourself, and I've said that so many times. But I also will say is that there is the irony of trying to play perfectly is that it's actually going to make you play worse, which is really funny to me because you wouldn't think so. You would think that if you said to yourself, okay, well, I'm not gonna make any mistakes, first off, you're putting so much pressure on yourself because you are going to make mistakes. And second off, you're going to make mistakes. It's not possible to play perfectly. Okay, I'm gonna get into tools now for you guys. Okay, also side note, I literally already recorded this whole entire podcast and for some reason it didn't save. But luckily, I did keep it short again because I said in the other recording, I said that if you guys like my longer podcast, let me know. Or if you guys want shorter ones, let me know. I've become a person where I like a longer podcast, but I know that maybe some of you, you know, you're on the go and you just want a 20-minute podcast, 25-minute podcast, whatever. Let me know, you know, say any comment on my social media pages or, you know, contact me on my website or anything. I have all of my socials in the description. But I I really would want to know your guys' preference. But yeah, with that being said, let's get into the last section, and that is tools. And so for tool number one, I want you to actually, this is gonna freak you guys out if you guys are control freaks. I want you to expect mistakes before the game or match starts. Literally tell yourself before competition, I will mess up today. I know you guys are probably freaking out, but this will help us so much. This will help our brain so much because if our brain expects that to happen, it will not panic in the moment. You will not start to freak out. And maybe you're still gonna feel a negative emotion, but you're actually gonna be able to bounce back faster. Okay, tool number two is be quote, playable. I say quote because I really want you guys to visualize saying playable in your head. I really want you to maybe say it out loud, whisper it to yourself during the game to be playable. I'm working with a volleyball client right now, and this is actually the reason why I'm making this whole podcast is because she brought up this whole entire subject to me about being perfect, because we actually had to at first we thought it was just she was dealing with pressure, and then we really realized that she wants to be perfect in every aspect of her life. Like she sets really high expectations for herself. And so we actually talked about where we I gave her some other tools too, but we actually talked about one of the tools just saying, be playable, do not be perfect, be playable because your team doesn't need you to be perfect, your coach does not need you to be perfect, he wants you to be, or she wants you to be playable. So the issue that she's having is that so she's a libero. So when the serve is coming, and look at me, guys, I'm using a different example other than basketball, finally. Um, but the serve is coming and she doesn't want to shank the ball. Obviously, she wants to have a perfect bump to the setter, but she's already thinking of the outcome. She's already putting all this pressure on her, she's overthinking in so many ways before the serve is even hit. And so I had her work on this week. I'm actually meeting with her tomorrow. I'm gonna see if this is really helping her out. But I told her to say, be playable because your setter just needs it to be playable because she has her own job. Your teammates have so many, they have their own jobs and responsibilities. Your coach has so many players that he has to keep track of. You just have to do your job and it just has to be playable. It does not have to be perfect. And I really think that's gonna help out a lot of you. Like if you are going to, if you ever find yourself thinking of an outcome, you have to say this word. You have to be like, nope, playable. And you have to be present in the moment. You can't be thinking about the future because you cannot control the future and you cannot change the past. You have to be present, especially when you're playing a sport. We should be present all the time as humans, but obviously that's not something that really happens. But especially in our sport, if we can and if it's really possible for you to just try to be present and try to. Be just playable. Okay, tool number three is don't predetermine what you're gonna do. I struggled with this so much in my career. I've had multiple coaches tell me to not predetermine what I'm gonna do, and specifically me. Like it wasn't even like a team talk, right? They were talking to me about how I have to stop predetermining because it showed on my face. It showed the fear that I had, it showed that I wanted to play so perfectly. And ever, I mean, I heard it my whole entire career, but until I was able to actually become a confident player, I was not a confident player for the first three years of my college career. And then my last year, finally, I became a confident player, and that's when I was able to stop predetermining everything I was gonna do, and I played so freely. So, for example, sorry, gonna do a basketball one, but let's say that I predetermined that I was gonna shoot a three-pointer. First off, that's not even good to predetermine because I don't know if it's gonna be open, and that's exactly what I'm trying to say. You can't predetermine anything because you don't know the circumstances that are gonna come up, you don't know how the defender's gonna guard you. You don't know how I'm trying to think of what other examples in your guys' sports, but I think I should just stick to this one because this is what I know. But if I were to predetermine me shooting the three-pointer and it is guarded, I will get blocked and I will probably miss because I didn't expect somebody be to be guarding me because I already chose I'm going to make this play no matter what. This is a way for an athlete to not make a mistake. If you're predetermining, that means that you're like, okay, well, this is supposed to go to plan, and that means that I won't make a mistake, and all I have to do is shoot this three and make it. Or hopefully, sometimes I'd be like, I want to make it, but maybe I know in my head, okay, if I miss it, that's okay. At least I know that it was a good shot. How do I know it's a good shot? I'm predetermining. I have to read in the moment, and I know that's a really hard thing to do as an athlete, is to just go off of instinct. But here's the thing we all have instincts within us because we have practiced for so many days, for so many weeks, for so many months and years. I know that if you are an athlete in high school or in college, you have been playing since you have been five years old. We have the skills, we have the instincts, it's in our subconscious mind. We just have to allow it to come the way that it wants to. We can't control the exact situation. We have to play off an instinct, we have to play off a reaction. And that's scary. That is scary for my control freaks out there. I get that, but you will realize that if you're able to change your mindset to that and you're able to play in the moment and play presently, you will feel free and you will be able to deal with more negative emotions and things that come up because you're allowing yourself in always in every aspect, you're allowing yourself to just give up. Not quit, guys. That's not what I mean by give up, just giving up your power by giving up, you know, all of these overthinking thoughts, all of this fear, and just playing in a free state of mind. And I know that's easier said than done, but I literally just did a whole podcast explaining every single concept about how we could do this and how we could accomplish this. Basically, we just have to learn over everything, over if you're even struggling with feeling confident, you're struggling with consistency, if you're struggling with anything in your sport, you have to learn to deal with your emotions. And I know that sounds scary, especially in this generation, like I said, but I promise you it is not that scary. And once you do it over and over again, you're going to be able to realize that you're building this confidence because you were brave. You were brave enough to feel negative emotions, to make mistakes, to take risks. And that's the only way that you're gonna get better in your sports, the only way that you're going to make your mind stronger. You literally cannot build confidence unless you're brave. You cannot get good at something unless you have experience. As much as you just want to sit and visualize, because I did this all the time. I always used to visualize and just be like, okay, now everything's okay. No, you actually have to experience things and you actually have to try things out. You actually have to, that's why I say in practice, that is the time for you to mess up and make mistakes and do get everything out that you need to get out and try and experience because that's the only way that you're gonna get better. That's the only way that you're gonna get over that hump. So, you guys, I get this is scary. The things that we're doing are fucking hard and fucking scary. I get that. But you guys have to learn to be brave, you guys have to deal with things, and we could take it. Humans could take that shit. Like we know how to deal with emotions, and you guys don't think that we do. Our brain is so powerful and so sturdy. Like, we could do it, I promise you. Anyways, thank you so much for listening to my podcast and thank yourselves for taking the time to improve your life, to improve yourself in your sport, to improve your mind. Hit that follow button to support me so I could keep posting free content for you guys, as well as my social media pages. Let's play confident, let's play to be great, let's play imperfect. Bye.